Archenemy Rules!

If you've been around us for a bit, you've probably heard me bring up Archenemy from time to time.

But what is this "Archenemy" thing?

Archenemy is the new Multiplayer offering for Magic. Like Planechase last year, Archenemy products will contain 20 oversized cards used specifically for the Archenemy format and a normal-sized 60-card preconstructed deck. Archenemy releases June 18th.

"But what is 'Archenemy'? Thanks for the product details, but what about rules and stuff?"

Okay, okay! Just a minute! Yeesh! Impatient little buggers, aren't ya?  :)

Let me preview this a bit before we get into details...

Find out more...AFTER THE JUMP.

June Schedule Updated: 2 Tournaments

JUNE
5th: Casual Day
12th: Cube Draft #2
19th: Casual Day
26th: Wayne's Crazy World Tournament


June 12th is our second Cube Draft! I've got some new cards from Worldwake and Rise of the Eldrazi, a few new foils and foreign-language cards, and even a few new classic card additions too! With that, though, means cards having to come out and make room for the Cube noobs. :(  I'll post preview pictures of the additions and removals later in the week. Feel free to comment on it all!  Entry fee will be $2, and prizes will consist of Rise of the Eldrazi prize pack splits.

June 26th is Wayne's Crazy World Tournament! There's only one rule in Crazy World: Just about everything is completely random and/or crazy! We're talking random timers, random decks, crazy Unglued and Unhinged shenanigans, just about everything! I'll have the rules as soon as Wayne can get around to getting me the information. Entry fee is $2, with prizes coming from Rise of the Eldrazi boosters.


If I can remember, I'll have my camera at each tournament so I can get videos of all the action! The Round 1, Part 1 video of the Rise of the Eldrazi draft got 100 views! With enough effort, maybe we can get 1 or 2 new guys in via YouTube?? Let's hope!

Take care!

Next Planeswalker-Based Duel Decks Set Revealed

 Today's Arcana spoiled the fall Duel Decks release, now typically reserved for decks with Planeswalkers in them.

Find out which Planeswalkers will be dueling this fall...after the jump!

REMINDER: Off Weekend This Saturday, 5/29

I just wanted to remind everyone that we won't be around the church Saturday, May 29th. We'll be back the next Saturday, though, with an easy casual day, then the next Saturday we'll do Cube Draft #2!

I will, however, plan on updating the blog with the Level Up specifics I meant to get out last week and an Archenemy preview that was also out last week from Wizards of the Coast.

Until then, I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend!


Preston

Magic Product News: New M11 Booster and Intro Pack Images

I hope this finds you all well!

In the last few weeks, Wizards of the Coast set up announcements on their homepage announcing new products and some specifics of previously disclosed products.


But first, we get a peek at the new Core Set 2011 Booster Pack and Intro Pack packaging...after the jump!

Vintage Proxy Tournament Report!

NOTE: I'm still editing, so give me a chance to "pretty it up" before commenting on the format. Do feel free to comment on the stories themselves. Thanks for your patience!

We had our first Vintage Proxy tournament a couple Saturdays ago. I was excited to see what cards we thought were worthy enough of proxying! I saw proxies done for Power, to fill gaps in our existing decks, and a little of both!

We only had 3 people for the tournament...but those 3 had a lot of variance to how they ran.


DECKS:
  Wayne: U/B Mill, featuring Jace, the Mind Sculptor (proxy), Force of Will (proxy), Keening Stone, Ancestral Recall (proxy), and Mind Funeral.

  Tiffanie: Big Bad Black Deck of Doom, featuring Black Lotus (her lone proxy), Visara the Dreadful, Royal Assassin, and a number of Dauthi-themed Shadow creatures.

  Preston: 43Land.dec, featuring Life from the Loam (x1 Proxy), Taiga (1x proxy), Raging Ravine, Glacial Chasm, Engineered Explosives, and Great Sable Stag.



While we meant for the tournament to be a normal 1-on-1 Swiss-like format, we only had 3 people to play. Instead, we did a 3-way free-for-all with decks designed to work best in 1-on-1 play. How would things turn out?

Find out...after the jump!

A Preview of "Wayne's CRAZY WORLD Tournament" (June 26th)

I got an E-mail today about Wayne's format rules and stuff for June 26th, and he wanted to preview what (craziness) he had in mind for it...

that will include , among other things  -  use of unhinged/unglued cards . . . planechase . . . weird "house" rules . . . DOUGHNUTS ! . . . (probably) singleton . . . (probably) vintage or legacy . . . (maybe) multi-player . . . (probably)with funny hats again . . . all-in-all a VERY serious somber affair !!!    ( & still looking for help finding some kind of random time setter like we talked about )      -      so will fill in more details as i get them figured out . . .

Ya see? I told ya we're a very casual crowd! Wanna see just how crazy things can get? Join us on that Saturday, June 26th!

Preston

PS: Does anyone have a random alarm/countdown generator, or could program one somehow? Just respond as a comment. Thanks!!!

Rise of the Eldrazi Draft Videos/Report

After two weeks, I finally got time to get these videos cut down, edited, and all that to put on YouTube to share with you. I had to cut a couple videos short, but in those I put annotations (in-videos pop-ups) with what happened before the end of the video.

I'm sure we made mistakes, made wrong picks in the draft, etc. I hope that shows we are a very casual crowd just focused on having a good time.  :)

If anyone's viewing this and it seems to be incomplete, I'm working on it as you're looking at it. Please be patient. Thanks!  :)

So without further ado...Saturday Morning Magic's Rise of the Eldrazi Draft Videos/Report!!!


ROE Draft, Round 1 Part 1 (of 2)




ROE Draft, Round 1 Part 2


 ROE Draft, Round 2 Part 1 (of 3)




ROE Draft, Round 2 Part 2



ROE Draft, Round 2 Part 3




ROE Draft, Finals Part 1 (of 2)



ROE Draft, Finals Part 2



The finals did go to a second game, but it was a Defender-fest. After that game went to extra turns, Wayne emerged the victor.


Let's hear it for Wayne Eanes, winner of our Rise of the Eldrazi "Release" Draft!




And a big thanks to Morgan Hardy, who runs Organized Play in Knoxville, TN, for supplying the Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Lord of Shatterskull Pass foil participation promos. We look forward to future involvement with Organized Play as we move forward with other events we'd hope to make high-profile in the Hixson area. :)

If you like what you see, feel free to drop by and pay us a visit! The address is at the top of the main blog page, and the schedule for May and June is in the post below this. We hope to see you soon! But until then, take care.

Remaining May + June Schedule

MAY
22nd: Casual Day
29th: Off Day, Tournament June 12th, Format TBD

JUNE
5th: Casual Day
12th: Tournament, Format TBD
19th: Casual Day
26th: Tournament, Format TBD?

So I need an idea for a tournament June 12th. I have an idea to do another Cube Draft, but if someone else has another idea just leave a comment to this post.

June 26th has a date, but Wayne needs to remind me what we're doing with it as he wanted that date.

I'm working on getting the Rise of the Eldrazi draft videos up. I got up to Round 2, Part 2 before YouTube decided to take it sweet time processing the video. When I get them all up, I'll post here with the video links.

Until then, take care!

The Magic School RETURNS! TMS #3: Damage Basics

Welcome back!
  I know I've slacked on The Magic School, so here I am with what I hope is an interesting read for you this time around.

  From time to time, we need to be reminded of the basic rules of the game. Sometimes we make things so complex (and in this game, rightfully so!) that even the simplest rules start to get questions because "it can't be that simple!"

  Today's topic isn't exactly simple, but it's not the most difficult either (Hello Stack! Good to see ya Layer rules!). If you understand the examples, you'll get the basics of how damage works.

So now that class is back in session...let's begin!

Vintage Proxy Tournament Rules REPOST: Tournament 5/15

Hello again!

  This is a repost of the Vintage Proxy Tournament Rules from last month. We had a weekend where no one was able to make the tournament date, so we rescheduled for May 15th.



Our next tournament, coming up a week from tomorrow, is Vintage format with Proxies!!!

We've never done a Vintage tournament where the Power 9 have been available, so here are the rules we're using:

1) Follow the Vintage Restricted List found here: Wizards of the Coast Official Vintage Restricted List

2) You are allowed up to 9 (Nine) proxy cards. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's one card used to stand in for another. For example, if you're using a Plains and you write "Black Lotus" on it, you're signifying you're using that card as a Black Lotus.
    * Proxies can take most any form. They can be as simple as Basic Lands with the intended card's name written on it (along with most all information, abbreviated of course for room), or they can go as high as full-color printouts used in a sleeve over another card.
    *What you cannot use as Proxies: non-Magic cards (you can't say a Hitmonchan from the Pokemon card game is really a Goblin Lackey), singleton cards whose only purpose is a proxy for another card but with no identifiable information for the card really being used (for example, a lone Mountain being used as a Mox Ruby with no writing signifying it's a Mox Ruby).

3) As a courtesy, we ask that you not build any FTK (First-Turn Kill)/FAST Kill decks. FTK decks will just get you hated and make you feel unwelcome in our crowd. We do like to play the game, but not a whole match inside of 10 minutes due to your wicked 1- or 2-turn combo. However, since there's no way to enforce a "no FTK decks" rule, I can't make this a hard-and-fast rule.

4) Contrary to the original rules post, Rise of the Eldrazi will be legal for this tournament. My issue then was the availability of Rise of the Eldrazi cards for our decks, but since it'll be out for a few weeks at the time of the tournament I think we're good to go with using them.

5) Entry Fee and Prize: $2 entry fee, prize split of as many Rise of the Eldrazi packs as we can get for the total entry fee.




To see some recommendations on what to proxy, see the bottom half of the original post here: http://cglhixson.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-weeks-tournament-424-vintage-with.html


This upcoming weekend is a Casual Weekend, so if there's something fun you've been wanting to try feel free to bring it!

Until then, everyone take care, and we hope to see you soon!  :)

Cube Draft Report...3 Weeks In the Making

Our group had our first Cube Draft nearly 3 weeks ago, but school and other business has prevented me from putting together a report...until now.

We didn't use the whole Cube. I'd say less than half the cards we started with remained unused. We did 3 packs each of 20 cards per pack with a turnout of 4 people. (So think about that...with more people, more cards get used...just saying...  ;)  ). We upped the minimum deck size to 60 since we had 15 more cards go around than in normal drafts.

We based our Cube around Evan Erwin's list on CubeDrafting.com. My budget doesn't allow us to use Power 9 or some of the higher-end cards (dollar-wise), but I've stretched a bit for the betterment of the Cube power level. :)

See what happened...after the Jump!

Cube Draft Report: TEST then REPORT

Hey guys!

  I'm getting around to updating about the Cube Draft, but I wanted to test a YouTube video link/embedding before I go whole-hog on getting the report posted. Just bear with me!

Organized Play Came Through!!!

There you are!

3x promo Prerelease Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
10x Lord of Shatterskull Pass
1x Mirrored Depths Planechase promo Planar Card

A huge thanks to Morgan Hardy of the comics and games store Organized Play in Knoxville for giving us these spare promos for our Rise of the Eldrazi draft we had last Saturday!

We'll have 5 Lord of Shatterskull Pass promos remaining after I hand them out to those who came to the draft, so...give me ideas for an event to pass them out at!

I'm working on getting the Cube Draft report together to post this week along with the Rise of the Eldrazi Draft videos. I think I got everyone but Mick into the Round videos with the ROE Draft, but considering Mick's been in two videos I've made already (including the Cube Draft finals video COMING SOON) it's a fair trade-off. :)


Until then, take care! And prepare for the Vintage Proxy Tournament on the 15th! I'll re-post the rules for that before Saturday (memory-willing!).